HOW TO HANDLE WEDDING FLOWERS FOR BRIDEZILLAS/ GROOMZILLAS- FLORIST BUSINESS!

This sounds like an ample budget to execute a beautiful display of flowers at their wedding celebration however with the help of social media wedding boards who promote costly wedding floral inspirations this budget may not allow for their wedding flower vision.

There are also couples who have a hefty budget but are super demanding turning one wedding florist to want drink regardless.  In these circumstances, you may run into the occasional “Bridezilla” or “Groomzilla”.  If you have no idea what a bridezilla or groomzilla is -well they’re the clients that are super unreasonable, want and expect attention whenever they see fit, have a ridiculous budget or demands and just make your stomach jitter with nerves.

What does a florist do in this situation? Surely these clients are not even worth booking! With lots of wedding florist competition, it is better to be prepared and book these clients if you can then turn them away. Below are 5 steps on how to handle your demanding wedding flower clients!

1. SET THE RIGHT AUTHORITY:

I speak to thousands of full-service/wedding florists on a weekly basis and the one thing they say to me time and time again is how intimidating difficult wedding clients can be. Some florists even go so far as saying that the nerves and loss of sleep brought on from such clients was just not worth the effort.

Unfortunately, when a wedding client starts getting in your head it causes doubt where you may start questioning your abilities and making mistakes.

Successful wedding florists know their worth, are confident and firm with their wedding clients in a professional way of course.  Lets put it this way the wedding clients are consulting with you for a reason, this is your opportunity to sway them in your direction with your knowledge and floral design abilities.

• Be confident in your floral wedding design abilities.
• Be Transparent
• Know your worth.
• Be firm/ professional.
• Be a good listener.
• Explain what is possible and not possible and why.

2. STAY ORGANIZED:

Confidence comes from staying well organized in your wedding floral business.

If you are a full-time wedding florist or even a full-service florist that only does a few weddings a year you should invest in wedding floral software.  Wedding floral software helps you convey the wedding clients vision and protect your floral business.

The process is to document every single detail of the conversations you have with your clients, and set expectations.

Let’s face it some newly engaged couples are on a roller coaster ride of emotions. They may say things they don’t remember or be sort of out of character due to the anxiety of planning their wedding.

It’s up to you the wedding florist professional to keep things organized and tidy. Also, be sure to have a contract and add a clause for “Act Of God” the wedding contract must be signed/dated by all names listed in proposal/contract.

3. DO NOT UNDERSELL YOUR WEDDING FLOWERS:

Florists are natural people pleasers and sometimes allow themselves to get too personal with their clients and offer wedding flowers at too low of a cost.

Be sure to charge at least 300% markup on all flower stems, supply 200% -250%, labor 20%, flower delivery, and setup cost if time-consuming. Underselling wedding flowers does not compensate in the end, charge for your services and make a profit. I assure you it’s OK to do this without gulit.

4. FOLLOW YOUR CONTRACT POLICY:

Other common issues that wedding florists may run into are the pleasant clients who ask for a change of your policies. This can be anything from “I will pay this now and x amount the day after the wedding”-or last minute “ I saw some flowers I love on Pinterest and want to change my flowers few months before the wedding” whatever the request is if it changes the wording in your contract do not do it.

Freely agreeing on a client bending your contract policy could also in the end void your wedding contract as you did not follow your own contractual documentation.  If you are going to make any expectations for your wedding client please be sure to revise your wedding contract and have them sign and date with new revisions.

The last thing you want to tell yourself as the floral professional is “Its OK if I do this for the client they are good for “.

Even if your client is the clone of  Mother Theresa any wedding contract revisions must be documented and signed.

5. REFUSING A WEDDING CLIENT:

I have such difficulty actually writing this last part, my inner self wants to be able to do it all and handle every single customer that comes my way however sometimes it’s just not possible.  I can assure you during my 18 years as a florist  I did turn away a few wedding clients.

I can even honestly tell you now looking back that about two of those wedding clients were turned away by nothing other than my personal intimidation which is not a good reason to turn a client away.

There are good reasons however to turn away wedding clients and some are even smart business decisions. At the end of the day if the expectations for the wedding client is something that is just not feasible then surely you do not want to take this wedding client on.

In this day and age, everyone is a critic with online reviews and in no way do I want you to turn business away fearing a bad review however if you certainly feel that you will not be able to handle this wedding client or you could already be very busy with bookings and can’t take this on then simply just let the customer know.

If there are more things on your list and you would like to have a chat please feel free to contact flower delivery richmond bc